NEW YORK - BRITISH actress Tilda Swinton says drinking just makes her sleepy or sick so when seeking inspiration to play a loud, hard-partying alcoholic in her latest film, she turned to her friends.

The self-confessed 'art world freak', who won a best supporting actress Oscar last year for Michael Clayton, plays a 40-year-old flamboyant, lying alcoholic in Julia, which opens in some US theatres on Friday.

SWINTON 'FIRST CHOICE' Swinton's performance received strong reviews, with The Telegraph newspaper in London saying she was 'unmissable', London's Metro newspaper that she gave a 'powerhouse performance' and The Mirror newspaper said it was 'truly unforgettable'. 'I wanted a woman full of life,' French director Zonca told Reuters. 'I always thought about (Tilda Swinton). I love the way she appears in movies. What I really like is her energy and her body ... She was really my first choice.' ... more

'I'm so aware very often when you see alcoholism in films, people tend to emphasise something that I don't really recognise in the alcoholics I know and love, which is a kind of loser quality,' Swinton told Reuters in a recent interview.

'I don't think of alcoholics as losers, particularly. Alcoholics tend to number the most energetic and fantastic people I know. So I was always thinking it would be nice to look at that kind of portrait,' she said.

Swinton, 48, confessed that due to her own drinking experience - 'If I get drunk, I throw up or I go to sleep,' the actress said - she was concerned as to whether she could successfully 'stagger around being drunk' in the film.

'But once I started, I realised that I've actually been doing that for years because my friends are drunk and I pretend to be drunk,' said Swinton, who lives in the Scottish Highlands with artist John Byrne and their 11-year-old boy and girl twins.

The film directed by Erick Zonca, which premiered at the 2008 Berlin International Film Festival, was released last year in Britain and some European countries. It follows Julia as she commits a crime after a chance encounter with a Mexican woman. -- REUTERS